Vampires

What the texts say

Vampires are mentioned in the published legendarium only in the tale of Beren and Lúthien, and there in two places. The first is the fall of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. When Huan had defeated Sauron in his wolf-form and Lúthien had forced him to yield the mastery of the tower, Sauron changed shape again, took the form of a vampire, huge as a dark cloud across the moon, and fled dripping blood from his throat to Taur-nu-Fuin, where he filled the forest with horror. The second is the disguise of Lúthien. In the ruin of the tower Huan found the wolf-hame of Draugluin and the bat-skin of Thuringwethil, who had been Sauron's messenger and flew in vampire-form to Angband with fingered wings that ended in iron claws at each joint. Lúthien put on the skin and by her arts took the creature's shape, and so she and Beren, a bat and a wolf, came to the gate of Morgoth.

That is all. The word vampire in these passages describes a shape: a great bat with clawed wings and, in Sauron's case, a taste for blood. Thuringwethil is named and given an office, and her name means woman of secret shadow; nothing else is said of her, not even whether she died before her skin was taken.

What is implied

Because Sauron could take the shape at will, and because Thuringwethil is spoken of as his messenger rather than as an animal, it is natural to read the vampires as lesser spirits in Sauron's service, wearing bat-form as Sauron wore wolf-form and as the werewolves may have been spirits in wolf-bodies. The texts do not say this. They also do not say what happened to the vampires after Sauron fled the isle. It is possible that Thuringwethil herself was killed there, since her skin was left behind, but the Silmarillion is silent.

No vampire is mentioned in the Second or Third Age. The great bats that flew over the Battle of Five Armies with the Goblins, and that fed on the fallen, are the nearest thing, but they are called bats, not vampires, and are treated as animals of Mirkwood. The Atlas does not count them among the vampires.

Fate

Unrecorded after the fall of Tol-in-Gaurhoth in F.A. 465.

Great bats. Thuringwethil's wings were fingered, with a hooked iron claw at every joint; Sauron's vampire-shape was vast enough to darken the moon and bled from the wound Huan had given him.

None; messengers and shapes of Sauron.

Not told. Servants of Sauron who wore, or were, bat-shapes.

Unknown. Thuringwethil's skin was left in Tol-in-Gaurhoth; nothing later is recorded of her or her kind.